middle class life in the soviet union

By Silviu Brucan, International Herald Tribune, In the East, Mikhail Gorbachev's reception by the Group of Seven leaders looked like the gathering of a rich family that decided to invite a poor, distant relative to dinner. As part of his bid to rapidly industrialize the Soviet Union, Stalin sought to force Soviet peasants off their privately owned plots, and […] How did Stalin want to be viewed by his people? The pent-up hatreds against the feudal lords burst out before the bourgeoisie had decided to do anything about agrarian reform. intyelligyentsiya, IPA: [ɪntʲɪlʲɪˈɡʲentsɨjə]) is a status class of educated people engaged in the complex mental labours that critique, guide, and lead in shaping the culture and politics of their society. Boris Yeltsin's success in Russia may be the first serious challenge to Mr. Gorbachev's personal hold on power, but Mr. Yeltsin's loose and heterogeneous coalition, Democratic Russia, is far from a political party strong enough to replace the Communists. The longer Mikhail S. Gorbachev remains in charge, the greater the chances that reform-minded middle class members of the Politburo will purge the old gerontocratic ''worker-peasant'' cadres and real democratization will take place. The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a union of multiple subnational Soviet republics; its government and economy were highly centralized. After the Warsaw Pact's military intervention, Czechoslovakia's middle class, many of whose members were reform Communists, was purged. The simple need for the Soviet Union to change its ways as it heads into the 21st century fuels reformist tendencies. The new cultivated middle class in Communist countries is increasingly well-informed. Russia will mark the 25th anniversary of the Soviet Union… Managers and entrepreneurs, engineers and specialists, shopkeepers and owners of repair services, restaurants and small factories, professionals in science, education and arts, doctors and dentists, not to mention political dignitaries and bureaucrats, already enjoy such privileges that mass media speak of rich and poor, while the government is compelled to protect people with fixed incomes. The difference between a middle class met half-way and a middle class whose aspirations are denied has been graphically illustrated in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. An issue, that caused some tension was a disagreement over the status of European countries. I’m guessing that’s because they were produced in the aftermath of the infamous 1959 “Kitchen Debate,” in which Americans showcased models of middle-class homes in Russia to claim the superiority of the capitalist lifestyle. He was considered as a dictator in the country. In Eastern Europe, one can measure the progress made by market forces with that yardstick: the share and influence of the emerging middle class in each society. These people were teachers, doctors, scientists and engineers. However, historically the class has been hard to define and even harder to find. How did Stalin want to be viewed by his people? Starting in March, some peasants, especially the very poor and those returning from the front, set fire to the big landlords’ farms and seized the crops. But for the time being, the old party structures have proved resilient in controlling local and even central administration. The Stalinist style of rule was able to produce industrial technology through discipline, slave labor and by putting emphasis on quantity rather than quality. If middle class professionals are not given the incentives and opportunities they demand, ultimately they will boycott the system - mainly by performing their duties in a pedestrian way and not investing effort in the creativity and problem-solving crucial to move a modern society forward. However, historically the class has been hard to define and even harder to find. Herring, who became politically engaged in the Middle East in the 1970s, saw that the Soviet Union was seeking to take over Afghanistan to ultimately gain control of … The middle class in Russia scarcely resembles the middle class in the United States or Western Europe where it represents more or less the majority of the population and is defined by a certain (high) level of income, an educated and professional status, ownership of a decent real estate, a healthy political conservatism and an interest in maintaining the status quo. Parties appealing to the workers got less than 10 percent of the vote. See the article in its original context from. In the three Baltic states, where capitalist structures prevailed before their annexation, quite a few have survived. Without a dynamic middle class one could hardly move a conservative society forward. In fact they do more than look and wait. Soviet Communist leaders increasingly are composed of people who are members of the middle class. Thus, when the current process of Soviet reform is over, the middle class will be firmly in control of the nation. Where such a process will stop - if it will stop - is, of course, impossible to predict. Stalinist ideology - classical totalitarianism - espoused the values of the proletariat, the working class. An impersonator of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin walks past a hammer-and-sickle red flag in Moscow on Nov. 21. Of course, that wasn’t true. ... to the ones adopted under the former Soviet Union. They became the people who ran the new Russia. But the cities in Soviet Union proper have no middle class. Stalin's introduction of the concept "Socialism in One Country" in 1924 was a major turning point in Soviet ideological discourse.The Soviet Union did not need a socialist world revolution to construct a socialist society, Stalin claimed. However, it's commonly argued that its influence over production and policies diminished as the USSR's existence progressed. The main resistance comes from below, from the manual workers who make up more than 30 percent of the work force. In the 1970s, middle-income citizens of the Soviet Union had limited access to different groups of goods that could be openly sold in shops. And there is very little of that social stratum in the Soviet Union after seven decades of communism… “The commoners”. Of course, it can be intimidated by threats - by the state's security system - as workers can. Rather, the foundations resemble those laid in Czechoslovakia and in Hungary. The only way to do so is to mobilize middle class technocrats and the rest of the intelligentsia. But the greatest barrier to establishing a Soviet market economy is the lack of an adequate social base, the middle class. Today, Hungary is one of the most liberal Eastern European countries, where Communism more and more lives only by name. In 1968, Czechoslovakia's reformers - the leaders of the ''Prague spring'' - tried to accommodate some middle class needs and moved forward with the kinds of reforms that Mr. Gorbachev is now trying to carry out in the Soviet Union. Ironically, it was Karl Marx who said - the ruling Communists know this well - that ultimately the dominating social class always represents the dominant means of production. I lived in the Soviet Union during my childhood, until the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was peacefully dissolved in December of 1991. But in the last 20 years, Communist countries in Eastern Europe have produced their own intellectuals, economists, managers, scientists, doctors, lawyers and technicians and other professionals, which form a middle class. Marketers, retailers, and politicians alike are increasingly seeking the favor of Russia’s “new” middle class. Exemplified in Stalin’s “On Soviet Industrialization” speech, the failure to modernize would destroy the Soviet Union, and with it socialism, from the face of the earth. In the opinion of some economists and sociologists, up to 30 percent of Russians are middle class. They tend to be open to new ideas and do not easily accept monolithic doctrine. Members of the middle class exhibit the same kinds of values, regardless of their country. They lived quite well for the standarts in Soviet Russia, but less than western middle class. It can obtain information from alternative sources if the ruling elite denies it to them. Urbanization, along with the development of a working and middle class, brought Russia into a new age of social modernity, making up for the slow transition from feudalism to capitalism. That prompted Khrushchev to direct more resources to consumer goods and modern amenities. He was considered as a dictator in the country. 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